


future-bending

by jelly_spine



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: M/M, Pining, kind of chronophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-15
Updated: 2017-06-26
Packaged: 2018-11-14 11:47:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11207445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jelly_spine/pseuds/jelly_spine
Summary: Donghyuck gets well-acquainted with the pavement and a fear of dying with his heartache.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> originally posted on [tumblr](https://gummy-lungs.tumblr.com/) in five parts

Donghyuck’s skipping over the spaces between the white stripes when it happens. In a second he’s sprawled over the zebra crossing, face against the hot pavement. Somewhere above his head Doyoung’s screaming blue murder at the driver of the car and the grandmother who was crossing the street in the same time has dropped her bag of groceries. An apple rolls and hits Donghyuck’s hand. Everything feels oddly watered down.

“You could’ve killed the kid!” Doyoung roars, his voice acute with white-hot rage the only thing piercing the numb bubble which smells of exhaust fumes and raw skin around Donghyuck. The pavement’s rough and unforgiving, his skin’s burning quietly.

Then Donghyuck’s rushed to the hospital. A nurse dabs at his scraped arms and legs and cheek with a wad of cotton dipped in bright pink, stinging disinfectant. An obviously very tired doctor writes him off as completely fine internally. No fractures, nothing dislocated, no concussion. Just a bit of heartbreak, Donghyuck would say. Doyoung negotiates him an exemption from school for the rest of the week.

The hospital has reached full capacity, filled with heatstroke patients. Donghyuck and Doyoung are ushered out. They figure the late July heat would do no good for the neon pink wounds, so Doyoung calls Taeyong. He drives over and they sit in his car with the air-conditioning on full blast, sharing a water bottle and an acrid sense of melancholy. The latter part might be partially because Taeyong’s newest girlfriend’s a smoker.

Doyoung still hasn’t calmed down completely. There’s a purple bruise above his eyebrow, reminiscent of the vein he busted in his fit of rage. He recounts the whole story to Taeyong, who nods along patiently.

“So, you had a pretty close call with death, huh?” Taeyong asks, looking at Donghyuck through the rear-view mirror. His gaze’s startling, worried. Always is when he looks at Donghyuck.

“I see Doyoung every day,” Donghyuck drawls from his spot in the back seat. Doyoung reaches over to pull at his ear. And then it hits him. He could die any second—not at Doyoung’s hands, never, but almost anywhere else. A car could drive over him for real this time or he could choke on his weekly Wednesday _ddeokpokki_ or a flower pot could fall on his head. He could die with his heartache and never live to kiss Mark Lee.

No way in Doyoung’s apartment. Donghyuck throws the door open and climbs out of the car. He starts walking down the street. For a second the two remaining in the car simply look at him go, then Doyoung slaps Taeyong’s thigh and makes him turn the key in the ignition. They catch up to Donghyuck, slowing down to drive alongside him.

Taeyong rolls the window down. “Where are you going?” he asks.

Donghyuck’s jaw is set in determination. “I’ve got to do something in case I die before tomorrow comes,” he replies.

“ _What?_ ” Doyoung snorts. “You’re not going to die, silly, except maybe if you keep walking in the sun and get an infection. Get inside.”

Donghyuck shakes his head stubbornly. “Just hop on,” Taeyong sighs, in a far more atoning tone than Doyoung. “I’ll let you play your crappy Polish rap music.”

“It’s not crappy,” Donghyuck defends himself, but gets in anyway. He sits with his knees pressed together, bopping his head to the music. He wonders how he should go about telling his chauffeur where he’s going without revealing too much. “Drop me off by that little square with the smoothie bar and the fountain that’s been dry for the last two years,” he finally instructs.

“What sort of business do you have there?” Doyoung asks. Donghyuck doesn’t answer.

/

Before he opens the door Donghyuck kisses both Taeyong and Doyoung on the cheek. The sunlight makes his scrapes tingle a bit. On his way to Mark’s house he has to cross the street twice. He spends a minute at each zebra crossing, quadruple-checking the cars waiting for him to pass aren’t moving anywhere. But all of that is fine, as long as Mark’s waiting for him at the finish line.

And he is. “Woah,” Mark says when he opens the door and takes in Donghyuck’s dusty shorts and scratched legs. “What happened to you?”

“Oh, just got pushed over by a car. Nothing much,” Donghyuck replies.

“ _Nothing much_?” Mark echoes, incredulous.

“Yeah, it just bumped into my hip. But it made me realise I could die any second. Sure, I got lucky this time, but what about next time? I understood I don’t have a second to lose, not a day to waste,” Donghyuck rambles in one big breath. Seven-second philosophy.

Mark lifts an eyebrow and shifts his weight from one foot to the other. “Wow, I never thought you would be the one of us concerned about the future,” he comments.

“Yeah, me neither,” Donghyuck says. “But I have to ask you something. Are you ready?”

Mark leans against the doorframe. “Shoot.” He looks all kinds of soft and nice and boyfriendy. All Donghyuck wants is matching locket necklaces with him. Couple keyrings. Memorabilia to remind them if they were to forget everything tomorrow.

Except there’ll be nothing to remember. “Would you mind kissing me?” Donghyuck asks.

Mark blinks. “I’m not gay,” he blurts. Plain and simple.

And Donghyuck says, “Haha, just kidding. Of course you aren’t.” Thinks, _well, damn_. He turns around and runs away. He still takes an eternity at the crossings, but this time there’s no one waiting at the finish line. His eyes sting as if someone’s poured some of the horrible disinfectant into them. Doyoung and Taeyong are still waiting in the car, in the exact same place. They’re sipping on smoothies.

Donghyuck opens the door and climbs in. Before asking anything Doyoung makes him taste his smoothie. The taste of strawberries and bananas mingles with bitter rejection. “It’s good,” he says, half-sobbing.

Without a word, Doyoung climbs over the centre console to the back. He pulls Donghyuck’s head into his lap and lets him soak his jean shorts with his tears. “What happened?” he asks, carding his fingers through Donghyuck’s hair.

Donghyuck’s limbs are folded close to his body and his sneakers’ soles are imprinted on the door but Taeyong says nothing. Donghyuck’s sure even x-rays would catch the horrendous ache in his chest. Doyoung repeats his question once before he replies, “He’s not gay.”

For some godforsaken Doyoung knows. “Mark?” he asks.

Taeyong starts the engine. Donghyuck wipes some snot on Doyoung sleeve. “Yeah,” he hiccups. “That’s what he said.”

They stop off in a pharmacy to buy Donghyuck some ointment. In Doyoung’s flat the air conditioning’s leaking and the fridge’s almost empty, but Donghyuck labels the place his safe haven. His parents were already contacted when he was first brought to the hospital, but he calls once more to tell them he’ll be staying at Doyoung’s place for a few days. They assure him they would have taken care of him personally if they weren’t at work. His mother jokes about letting Doyoung adopt him. They ask him if he’s told Mark.

“No, haven’t talked to him.”

/

At least the future can’t take Mark away from him now, Donghyuck tells himself. Donghyuck: 1. World: 0.

Then again, maybe Donghyuck’s got the whole equation wrong. While he spends most of his time holed up in Doyoung’s apartment, in a horrendous slump, the world keeps rotating, unbothered. The bus number 29 still drives down the street every fifteen minutes and the clouds float on peacefully. Still, he tells himself he’s on the winning side.

Doyoung’s out most of the day, on lectures and at work. When he’s at home he tells Donghyuck, “If he never comes around at least you’ll know he was never a true friend.”

But it’s not possible Mark Lee wouldn’t be a true friend. He’s the most legitimate, _real_ person Donghyuck could have stumbled upon in this rotten world. Maybe he’s tried to call a million times. Donghyuck wouldn’t know. He’s taken the sim card out of his phone, muted Mark in every messaging app and told Doyoung to only talk about the growth cycle of a toad if Mark were to call him.

“Maybe _you_ need to come around at some point,” Doyoung says one night.

Donghyuck picks at the hardened scabs littering his arms. “I’m not the one who straight up shot down a kind-of confession,” he grumbles. A pearl of blood rolls out.

“Okay, yeah,” Doyoung agrees, “but I was a pretty hard situation for him. And you didn’t give him a chance to explain himself at all. I think we both know he would never hurt you.”

It’s not like Donghyuck can deny it. He disassembles his phone, puts the sim card back in and reassembles the whole thing. There are, sure enough, a dozen calls from Mark. Messages, too. Donghyuck ignores them all and dials Mark’s number. The phone goes _tuut, tuut_ against his ear.

Mark picks up. “Hello?”

The words die in Donghyuck’s throat. He can hear Mark waiting, breathing. Then, Mark asks if he could _pretty please_ get a second chance. To redeem himself. The last thing he wants, he says, is to lose Donghyuck.

Donghyuck inhales long and wobbly. “I can—yeah, we could just forget this ever happened. I mean, it was a joke anyway,” he chokes out. The first thing he’s said to Mark in days.

“I’m not laughing, Donghyuck,” Mark says. “Meet me in front of the café next to the big department store downtown, please?”

Donghyuck hangs up.

/

Donghyuck’s wearing Doyoung’s clothes because he’s too lazy to go get a fresh change of his own from his house. The borrowed graphic tee’s a bit loose around his shoulders. He’s had to make an extra hole into the belt holding up a pair of baggy shorts. His hair’s overgrown, just long enough to be tied up into a little bun. His scabs are dark and stiff and itchy.

Mark’s hair’s freshly cut. The sun’s erased all the pimples from his cheeks. He leans against the street light and looks at the cars driving past. “You know,” he says, “I don’t want our friendship to change.”

Donghyuck looks down. “Right,” he answers. “I’m sorry I asked you to, uh, you know.”

“No, no, it’s okay. I’m sorry I can’t like you back,” Mark apologises. “I’m not gay.”

Donghyuck leans on the other side of the street light and looks at the cars’ tires going ‘round and ‘round. He’s got the same watered-down feeling he had when he got hit by the car. Except Doyoung’s not there to pop a vein and scream at him until he comes back from the dead if needed. “Yeah, you told me,” he says, then turns around and walks away.

Donghyuck enters the department store. He wanders into the furthest corner of the makeup department. He sits down on the cold, tiled floor and calls Taeyong.

“Want me to pick you up?” Taeyong offers once Donghyuck’s sobbed twice into the receiver. Donghyuck only nods, but Taeyong somehow catches it through the phone. “Be there in fifteen.”

Taeyong brings Donghyuck a pretzel and a soda. The smell of the cigarettes has already started to fade from his car. Donghyuck sits with his shins against the dashboard, desperate to hold someone’s hand. The future’s bearing down on him. In the end, anything could smash through the car’s steel frame any second.

/

Eventually, Donghyuck has to leave his safe haven behind and return to school. Contemplating how to get over the street, he misses the bus and makes it to class twenty minutes late. Just as the teacher’s about to scold him about his tardiness and the uniform he borrowed from Doyoung which isn’t even his school’s she looks at his wounds and lets him off.

On lunch hour Mark avoids Donghyuck’s gaze. After school he gives Donghyuck a ride home on his bicycle as usual, but the wind’s the only one talking. They fly through the streets, the soles of Donghyuck’s sneakers almost grazing the pavement. He tightens his hold on Mark’s waist every time a car drives a bit too close.

“Are you scared of cars now?” Mark asks when they reach Donghyuck’s house. He still isn’t looking Donghyuck in the eye, but it’s an improvement.

“I wouldn’t say scared,” Donghyuck says, getting off the back of the bike. Mark’s gaze finally snaps to him. “I just didn’t really like being pushed over by one.”

For a moment they stay just like that, staring at each other. Mark has an odd look in his eyes. He fiddles with the brakes of his bike. Left, right. Left, right. Donghyuck holds onto the straps of his backpack. The clouds’ shadows are cracking and moving.

“Bye then,” Mark says, turning to leave. Donghyuck watches him go. The evening sunlight’s got a lilac hue.

/

According to Doyoung, teenage infatuation always passes. When Donghyuck questions his logic he justifies it by saying he’s completing a degree in music. It’s got nothing to do with adolescent feelings, but, strangely, it makes him seem a bit more credible.

So Donghyuck believes time’s going to heal his wounds. Except if he somehow happens to fall from Doyoung’s balcony. Or if a meteorite hits Earth. If he stays alive long enough, he’s going to look at Mark and the world won’t feel like it’s warping and his heart won’t feel like it’s melting down his spine anymore.

For now, Donghyuck still wishes for a hand to hold when he’s walking over zebra crossings. He skips over the white stripes, sunlight burning the back of his neck, and hopes he had never been hit by that car and decided to try to make his future his own.

The future obeys no toothpick-limbed Korean teenager.

/

They’re on their way to Donghyuck’s house, waiting for a light to turn green, when Mark turns to ask, “Want me to pick you up in the morning?”

Donghyuck stares at the little spoke accessories attached to Mark’s bike’s wheels. Mark’s so wonderfully outdated. The corners of his mouth curling up into a smile, Donghyuck replies, “Why?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Mark says, shrugging. “I heard you’ve been late to school often lately and figured you could have problems with getting over streets.”

The light turns green. A car honks. The driver rolls the window down and shouts at them, telling them to move. Mark starts pedalling, the accessories rotating so fast they fade into colourful streaks. Donghyuck turns his head to stick his tongue out at the driver.

Donghyuck feels invincible enough to let go of Mark waist and spread his arms. The pavement and time and space are bending under their will, making way to Mark’s age-old bike with its decorated wheels and faded pale turquoise paint.

Donghyuck’s fine with this, too. He thinks. He’s telling himself, one day, they’ll have completely unromantic matching keyrings.

“You still didn’t give me an answer,” Mark says when they stop in front of Donghyuck’s house. He’s fiddling with the brakes again.

“I told you I’m not scared,” Donghyuck answers, “but I don’t mind a free ride.”

Mark has that odd look in his eyes again. As he’s paddling away he turns to look at Donghyuck, who’s still standing on the curb, and almost drives into Donghyuck’s neighbour’s car. “I’m taking revenge for you,” he hollers before he goes on his way once again.

Donghyuck laughs so hard tears pool in his eyes. And then, they’re not from laughter anymore, but from misery at not being able to love Mark Lee with his whole teenage might. He sits on the curb, crying into his maths textbook. The other neighbour’s tiny fluffy Pomeranian with the devil’s temper is quiet for once, watching him through the front yard’s fence.

/

“Did we have this kind of drama when we were in high school, Taeyong?” Doyoung asks. He, Taeyong and Donghyuck are sitting in Taeyong’s car again, in a fast food restaurant’s drive-in lane. Their order’s taking an awfully long time to get prepared. The girl at the hatch apologises to them every few seconds.

“Well, yeah, there was that girl you dated for a while before she dumped you for Jung Jaehyun,” Taeyong reminisces. “You were already talking about marrying her and everything.”

“My god,” Donghyuck sighs, “don’t remind me about it.”

Taeyong continues, “And then you ended up dating Jaehyun himself.”

Donghyuck leans over the centre console so he can participate in the conversation. “You were quite the Casanova back when you were young, weren’t you?” he teases.

“Are you saying I’m ancient?” Doyoung demands with a smile, pulling on Donghyuck’s ear.

They finally get their food. Doyoung feeds Taeyong fries as they drive through half-empty streets. Donghyuck sings them a song because the radio broke down last week, mouth half-full of cheeseburger. He's picked the pickles out. The engine’s gentle purr reverberates in his bones, making his scabs itch. It's a bit lonely in the back seat.

“If I got over both that girl and Jaehyun,” Doyoung says, dipping another fry in mayonnaise and stuffing it into Taeyong’s mouth, “you can damn well get over Mark.”

/

Donghyuck’s wounds are almost healed. Most of the dark scabs are gone, making way to fresh, tender pink scars. They peek from under his school uniform as he climbs off the bicycle and thanks Mark for the ride. The morning sunlight’s kind on them.

“I would feel bad letting you run over streets by yourself after what happened,” Mark replies, casting a worried look on the scars before he bends down to lock his bike. He makes it very hard not to love him.

“Don’t be so kind to me,” Donghyuck says. And means it.

Mark straightens up and laughs belatedly. “Not like I can help it,” he says, then rubs the back of his neck like he’s got more to say.

Donghyuck turns and leaves. Mark watches him go.

/

On the way home Mark and Donghyuck stop in a little park. The leaves of the trees bending over them shiver like matte sequins and the sky beyond them is deep, spotless blue.

“You know,” Mark starts, then leaves it at that.

“What?” Donghyuck urges.

“When you came to my door right after the accident, I, um,” Mark says. He stops and starts again, like a hiccupping engine, “I just wanted to swoop you up into my arms and prepare you a bath and let you sleep in my bed. And then you started talking about how you could die any second and said, you know, what you said.”

Donghyuck’s knees are pressed together. “Yeah?” he urges once more.

Mark continues, “Yeah, I freaked out. We were supposed to stay best friends forever. Attend each other’s weddings and have our kids call us uncle Mark and uncle Hyuck. I thought, why change the future when we could just go on like we were?”

Somehow Donghyuck finds it in himself to say, “You’re a coward.”

Mark chuckles, albeit sadly. “I am. I know. But then I realised I wouldn’t really mind change,” he says and lets it sink in.

“You do realise you broke my heart?” Donghyuck says after a moment of silence. It feels horrendously cliché, like something Doyoung would write down in his little notebook reserved for embarrassing things Donghyuck’s let out of his mouth.

“Yes, of course, and I’m sorry for that,” Mark exclaims. “I meant, only if you want, I’d like to take you up on your offer.”

Donghyuck sighs. “Let’s just go home first.”

/

Mark tries to kiss Donghyuck when he’s getting off the bike. The neighbour’s Pomeranian is yapping its head off and Donghyuck hastily puts his hand between their mouths. Mark’s kiss lands smack in the middle of his palm, over the life line which might just shorten a bit every time Mark rubs salt into his wounds like this.

“Why?” Mark asks.

And Donghyuck blurts, “Are you sure this isn’t too gay for you?”

The corner of Mark’s mouth twitches. Miffed. “This is really not the moment to be petty, Donghyuck.”

“Yes, okay,” Donghyuck says, his hand still held up, “I know I’m the one who started this, but I need a bit of time to think this through.”

Being the nice guy he is, Mark gets fed up with the whole conversation _politely_. “How much time? Ten minutes or a week or three years?” he asks, voice rising only a bit. “Why kill more time?”

Donghyuck scoffs. “You’re the one who was afraid of the future,” he accuses.

“But, see, not anymore,” Mark replies, half-screaming. His face’s beet red, like he’s been burned. “And it’s not going to wait for us.”

“Can I really be blamed for wanting to be sure you aren’t going to just tell me _sorry, no can do_ again? Why can’t you just let me think about it for a bit?” Donghyuck shoots back. His scars are blazing red and purple.

Mark crosses his arms and looks away and says, “Okay, fine, but know I won’t wait for you to make a decision.”

“Oh yeah?” Donghyuck asks.

“Yeah,” Mark replies.

Donghyuck narrows his eyes. “Okay, then,” he snaps and turns to go home. He stomps up the steps to the front porch, throws Mark one last scornful look over his shoulder and jams the key into the lock. The door opens and closes with a whine. The dog’s barking bleeds through the keyhole.

Donghyuck goes to the kitchen. He scores the fridge for leftovers from the previous night and finds some _kimbap_. Taeyong would cringe at the way he picks up five pieces with his grimy little hands and admires the perfect curve of seaweed spiralling to the middle. Even the miserable little roll makes him think of Mark. God damn it.

It takes exactly six minutes for Donghyuck to give up and run out of the house. The Pomeranian’s quiet. Mark’s still there, sitting next to his bike lying on its side on the ground. The dog’s bead-like little black eyes follow Donghyuck running over to Mark and practically falling into his lap.

Mark spits out a few grains of rice and a piece of carrot because Donghyuck still had a bit of _kimbap_ in his mouth. The pavement’s melting away.

/

Donghyuck doesn’t think about what happened to the supposed end of the world in 2012 and about the endless possibilities of him dying in the next twenty-four hours anymore. Mark holds his hand, their palms hot and sweaty, as they walk over zebra crossings, and lets him buy them matching socks. He sits in the backseat of Taeyong’s car with Donghyuck and eats the pickles from his hamburgers. 

Maybe the future wouldn’t bend under the will of one toothpick-limbed Korean teenager, but two of them might just do the trick.


	2. past-uncoiling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mark gets well-acquainted with his almost-in-laws and Donghyuck's nose. Not necessarily in that order.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> since i was asked about how doyoung, taeyong n hyuck got to know each other  
> a mess

Mark smells of chlorine. Swimming goggles’ imprints around his eyes, gentle pink like the scars creeping up Donghyuck’s arm and leg. He breathes in and Donghyuck can hear the air rumbling and tumbling along his spine. He looks soft, sounds soft. With his towel-dried hair and cotton shirt and rectangle smile.

Turns out, Mark isn’t as soft as he looks. His bike’s tire goes flat with a quiet _fshh_ sound. As they come to a halt Donghyuck hits his nose into Mark’s sharp, angular shoulder blade and blood starts oozing out slow and gentle. He can’t smell anything beyond the blood.

“Babe!” Mark exclaims, getting off the bike. He likes throwing those pet names around. Turning around, he hits Donghyuck in the jaw with his equally bony elbow. He rolls bits of elephant-patterned tissue into wads and gives them to Donghyuck so he can stick them into his nostrils.

As a result, Donghyuck’s voice comes out stuffy. Taeyong has difficulties making out what he’s saying over the phone. He has to repeat three times, “Mark’s bike’s tire got busted when we were coming back from the swimming hall. It’s a long way home. Pick us up?”

“Right, right, of course,” Taeyong says when he finally catches it. “I’ll just have to go get Doyoung from the music school first.”

While they’re waiting, Mark cracks his fingers one by one and says, “I’ve never met them. Taeyong and Doyoung.”

Donghyuck gives Mark a sideway glance. “No,” he replies, “no you haven’t. But I’ve told them lots about you.”

Mark lifts Donghyuck’s hand to his face and laughs against it. “Gosh, this feels like meeting my in-laws,” he mumbles, exhaling on Donghyuck’s knuckles.

/

Through the side-view mirror, Doyoung’s eyes follow Donghyuck climbing into the back seat. As Donghyuck’s fastening his seat belt he turns around and reaches around the passenger seat’s headrest to shove at his nose. Donghyuck yelps and swats his hands away. Doyoung says, “Mark been bullying you?”

Mark blushes, pulls his hand away from Donghyuck’s grasp and starts cracking his fingers again. Donghyuck retaliates, “If someone’s bullying me right now, it’s you.”

Taeyong starts up the engine. “He got you there, Doyoung.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Doyoung huffs. He stares at Mark through the rear-view mirror, examining him. The little spruce-shaped car freshener hanging from the mirror swings from left to right, as if shivering under his scrutiny. “Don’t think I don’t see you two sharing looks back there.”

“So, um,” Mark says. As elegant as a goldfish. “How did you all come to be friends?” Barely swallowing his laughter, Donghyuck looks out of the window.

Doyoung says, “I was Donghyuck’s piano teacher for a while.”

To which Mark responds with, “Really?”

And it goes from there.

/

The details about Doyoung are he’s in his first year of university and he works three jobs. He rents a tiny room with one stamp-sized window and lives on instant rice and soup. The landlady has officially banned his violin from the building, so his childhood friend, Taeyong, keeps it for him. He might also be avoiding all high school class reunions solely because of Jung Jaehyun.

One of Doyoung’s jobs is giving kids private piano lessons. When he starts teaching Donghyuck the kid’s fourteen and gets _kimchi_ stuck in his braces all the time. His hamster died a week ago.

“I hate the piano,” Donghyuck says upon their first meeting. He lets Doyoung in and tells him where to leave his shoes and his coat.

Wondering at the absence of family pictures in the house, Doyoung snorts. “I don’t really care.” He just needs the money.

For the first twenty minutes, Donghyuck and Doyoung hate each other. Donghyuck jabs at the keys so hard the tips of his fingers turn white. Doyoung corrects even the smallest of mistakes, voice strung tight with irritation. Then, Donghyuck mentions that his parents are barely ever home and Doyoung can’t find it in himself to despise the kid anymore.

“Why are you taking piano lessons if you hate it?” Doyoung asks. He needs the money, sure, but now he kind of cares, too.

Donghyuck shrugs. “My parents want me to.”

“But how can they make you do something if they’re never here?”

Donghyuck stops to think. His fingers travel from C all the way up to A, then back down. Then, he says, “They can still scream at me through the phone, you know.”

“Okay, but what if they never find out we aren’t practicing?” Doyoung asks. The left corner of his mouth twists up a bit.

Donghyuck gives Doyoung a hesitant look, but copies the half-smile. “What do you mean?”

“What if we go out and have fun instead of sitting here poring over Debussy’s pieces?” Doyoung presses a black key thrice for emphasis. “Don’t get me wrong, I love his music. But the dude’s dead. We aren’t.”

/

Doyoung infiltrates a children’s ball pool with Donghyuck and drowns in the colourful plastic balls and laughs so hard the whole sea seems to vibrate a bit. And gets paid for it. He goes to an amusement park and lets Donghyuck drag him on the tallest and scariest rollercoaster and cries into Donghyuck’s shoulder because he hates heights. And gets paid for it.

Once, Doyoung rents a room in a karaoke box for three hours. Donghyuck’s there, braces freshly removed and both rows of teeth perfectly straight when he smiles. Taeyong, who’s been their designated driver since they started messing around instead of having actual piano lessons is there, too.

Donghyuck chooses an ABBA song. He drags Taeyong up from the couch and says, “My hamster’s name was Anni-Frid.” If Donghyuck tried, he could sing very well. Instead, he settles for screaming obnoxiously and shaking his butt. Taeyong sings quietly, microphone glued to his mouth.

Doyoung watches his fake-student and his childhood friend belting out _Take a Chance on Me_ ’s lyrics and wonders why the hell he’s letting himself get payed for having the most fun he’s probably ever had with the best people he’s probably ever met. He should be the one paying.

By the time two hours have passed they’ve moved on to cheesy ballads. Taeyong’s fallen asleep on the couch. Despite their throats starting to go sore, Doyoung and Donghyuck continue crooning.

“You’re supposed to dedicate this song to someone special,” Doyoung says over the opening notes of a particularly corny song. His voice echoes.

The multi-coloured circles of light from the disco lights hanging from the ceiling brush over Donghyuck’s face. His tongue and teeth coloured blue, he says, “Do you have anyone in mind?”

A green light falls right above Doyoung’s left eye. “Not really. You?”

Donghyuck shrugs. “Maybe. I don’t know. A friend from school. Possibly.”

“She pretty?” Doyoung asks. The intro’s coming to an end.

“ _He_ ,” Donghyuck says. Doyoung’s never seen him smile like that. “He’s really swell.”

“Go back to hell,” Doyoung says, just because it rhymes. Donghyuck bursts out laughing and misses the beginning completely. They both get a horrible score on the song because they’re laughing more than they’re singing.

/

Donghyuck’s nose’s stopped bleeding. “My parents found out we weren’t playing the piano, eventually. They screamed at me over the phone. But they were too busy to think about it too much so they just forgot about the whole thing and I never had to play again. It was nice while it lasted, though,” he says, laughing.

Mark’s stopped cracking his knuckles. He holds Donghyuck’s hand over the middle seat. His palm’s slick, white-hot. “And after that?”

“We just continued hanging out,” Taeyong says, putting the turn signal on.

“Yeah,” Doyoung agrees. “By the way, did you know Donghyuck still has his Mongolian mark?”

To which Mark responds with, “Really?” Donghyuck blushes and kicks at the back of Doyoung’s seat. Taeyong throws him a warning look through the rear-view mirror.

And there they go again.


End file.
